Clearwire unveils wireless card

Clearwire is officially rolling out its PC card, a move that will make it easier for customers of the Kirkland broadband wireless service to connect to the Internet in the more than 400 U.S. cities and towns where it operates.

The cards allow Clearwire users to access the Internet on laptop computers without the need to plug-in external modems to a power source. Service plans start at $59.99 per month, with the card itself available for lease for $6.99 per month. The card is designed to offer download speeds of up to 1.5 megabits per second and upload speeds of up to 256 kilobits per second.

P-I reporter Dan Richman covered the availability of the new service in the Seattle area — one of Clearwire’s largest markets — last month.

Clearwire had about 299,000 customers at the end of June.

UPDATE: Tim Bueneman of McAdams Wright Ragen says that investors are concerned that the cost of the Clearwire’s new wireless card may be too high. And he passed on a note from the firm’s research analyst Sid Parakh, who notes that it “is safe to assume that the PC card is not going to help dramatically increase subscriber growth, and that the offering should be incrementally beneficial.”